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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24667999">Pathetic</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse'>PenguinofProse</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Season 7 speculation [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The 100 (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Brainwashing, F/M, Radio Calls, S7 speculation, Sharing a Bed, Snow, Tent in the snow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:28:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,014</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24667999</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>S7 speculation. Couples' brainwashing. Clarke ends up losing her memories while Bellamy remembers everything. What will it take to bring her back? Kind of companion piece to "Moments Lost and Moments Found". Angst, a happy ending, and a shared tent in the snow.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Season 7 speculation [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1783594</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>117</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pathetic</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello and welcome to a spot of unrealistic but deeply enjoyable S7 speculation - a kind of companion piece to "Moments Lost and Moments Found". This diverges from canon towards the end of episode four. Huge thanks to Stormkpr for speedy, thorough and encouraging betaing. Please note there will be the occasional sexual allusion but nothing explicit. I might write some explicit scenes as a follow-up if there's any demand for them. Happy reading!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It's a clever idea, Clarke has to concede.</p><p>She might even find herself admiring these scientists in their white coats with their mind-bending substances, were it not so damn inhumane.</p><p>She's never heard of anyone experimenting with torturing and brainwashing people in pairs before. There's a part of her mind that wants to think of it as <em>couples' torture</em> but that's madness, of course, because she and Bellamy are not a couple. The point is, these Men in White clearly have a strategy specifically designed to manipulate the two of them as a closely bonded package deal.</p><p>It starts simple, a mostly-true summary of their relationship so far.</p><p>"You're the Commander of Death and the man who keeps her alive." One of the Men in White points out.</p><p>"The inside man." His colleague adds, nodding wisely.</p><p>"And the leader of impossible choices." Another contributes.</p><p>"You care about all your people, but you care about him more."</p><p>"And you need her. You'd do anything to protect her."</p><p>"The two of you are the key to winning the last war humankind will ever wage."</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy is absolutely bricking it, to be clear. He's never been so terrified in his life, because these Men in White mean business, and because the dangerous situations he hates the most are always those where Clarke is in trouble, too.</p><p>It stands to reason that these lunatics have decided to take them as a package deal, he frets. Just his luck. A hundred-and-thirty-one years in love with this woman, and he still can't tell her how he feels, or kiss her, or any of the fun stuff. No, they're just obviously in love enough for a bunch of madmen to decide it makes sense to damn well torture them as a couple.</p><p>The Men in White start out with some sort of green gas – presumably taken from the anomaly, based on the hallucinations it brings out. Bellamy is used to hallucinations being a private affair. He's grown almost comfortable with the idea that he is the only person who will ever see the naively happy future with Clarke that the anomaly has always showed him.</p><p>That's not the case, any more.</p><p>Somehow these men have wormed their way inside his brain, and when the green gas is gone, they play video footage on a big screen – footage that shows exactly what he saw.</p><p>There are no prizes for guessing that his hallucination is a happy family life with Clarke. But it's not just any happy family life. It's a very <em>specific</em> delusion, in which they raise Madi together, and add to that family a little girl with freckles scattered across her cheeks and a serious young boy who takes his responsibilities to heart.</p><p>"Bellamy?" Hallucination-Clarke calls for him, on the screen, whilst juggling their daughter in her arms. "Can you put Gus down for his nap?"</p><p>"Already done." The Bellamy who appears in his hallucination looks younger, somehow, and less tired than the face he last saw in the mirror.</p><p>Hallucination-Clarke gives a relieved sigh. "You're my hero." She tells him.</p><p>The worst part is, she's being serious. That's the most embarrassing thing of the lot, not the picture-perfect children or Clarke's low-cut top.</p><p>No, his most humiliating hallucination is surely the idea of Clarke Griffin calling her <em>his hero</em>, and it not being a joke.</p><p>He tries to look across at her, to meet her eyes and convey that he's sorry, that this is at least as excruciating for him as it is for her, and that although he may not be the most rational man in the world, he is not so insanely delusional as to actually want her to fawn over him like that. OK, yeah, the toxin says it's his deepest desire, but he has enough self-control that he would never actually want her to behave in such a way in real life.</p><p>Honest.</p><p>He can't tell her that, though. He can't even hope to convey it with his gaze, because his head is stuck fast, facing forwards, and he imagines hers must be much the same.</p><p>He struggles for a long time, because he's never been a quitter. But after several hours of watching his hallucination – at about the time that more handsome Bellamy takes that more adoring Clarke to bed – he admits defeat and simply closes his eyes to block out the images.</p><p>If he keeps his eyes open, he's worried he might allow himself to enjoy the show.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke doesn't want to be enjoying this. In fact, she's fairly certain that enjoying this makes her the worst kind of monster – Bellamy must be humiliated beyond belief right now, and here she is, lapping it up. In her defence, she's been pretty starved of affection, in recent years. She can feel her heart swelling with the knowledge that there's someone out there who wants her to look at him with adoration.</p><p>She is struck, too, by how many similarities there are between Bellamy's hallucination and her own, which they are presumably going to have to sit through in due course. Both of them yearn to raise Madi together, it seems, and both of them want to give her siblings. And she definitely desires to shower Bellamy with affection like the Clarke of his hallucination is doing, because she's pretty sure no one has ever loved him so openly as that, and frankly, she thinks he deserves that to happen for a change.</p><p>There are key differences, of course. She analyses the mismatch in their sexual desires with almost obsessive detail, wondering whether it will prove prohibitive to them pursuing a relationship if they ever get out of here, and deal with the Echo awkwardness, and overcome a thousand other obstacles.</p><p>In Bellamy's hallucination, she takes the lead in the bedroom. And she supposes that makes sense, in a way, because her strong opinions and their arguments and her leading their people have been key factors in their relationship so far. But her daydreams have always featured him taking the initiative on that front – he is, after all, more experienced than her in this area, but there's something else going on here, too. After a lifetime of being thrust into leadership positions, she thinks it might be quite nice to have someone else calling the shots once in a while. And taking care of her along the way, of course.</p><p>This is madness. This is all madness. She's never going to have sex with Bellamy – especially now they're locked to a pair of chairs in a brainwashing lab – so there is no point in dwelling on it.</p><p>She notes that <em>madness</em> might be what the Men in White for aiming for.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy is going mad.</p><p>He knows he's going mad, but somehow, he can't do anything to stop it. He can just watch reality slip ever more elusively through his fingertips, as he takes in the images on the screen before him.</p><p>They're not hallucinations, today. He thinks there's a bit of a pattern shaping up, here, of different phases of content in the mission to manipulate their minds. The deepest desire hallucinations are to punish them, and keep them in line. They are the torture – hours of dreaming of a future they cannot have, coupled with the humiliation of being laid bare before each other. So they are shown those when they've done something wrong, when they've questioned the new reality that the Men in White are ramming down their throats.</p><p>Today's lesson is in fighting back. It's about how violence is always the answer, and how force is the only effective way to take care of each other.</p><p>It starts out simple, with Bellamy shooting the grounders to protect Clarke at the bridge. He hears the present Clarke who is strapped to that chair at his side screaming a little and the sound of it goes right through him. He's worried about that – they've scarcely begun their lesson for the day, and yet it seems like she's falling apart already.</p><p>Next up, he's on screen dashing a possibly-poisoned glass out of Clarke's hand with unwarranted force, and then there is the City of Light, Bellamy standing guard over Clarke's body in that Polis tower. It goes downhill when they start seeing footage of Sanctum, watching Bellamy losing the plot over Clarke's presumed death. Madi is demanding vengeance, but Bellamy knows that's not right.</p><p>He might be going mad, but he has enough sanity to know that blood must not answer blood.</p><p>"No!" He cries, pulling at his restraints. "No! We have to do better. For Monty. For Monty." He sobs, desperate.</p><p>That's the wrong thing to say. He knows it's the wrong thing to say, because the screen stops showing him the true past. All of a sudden, instead, he is confronted by the image of a most vivid hallucination of Clarke sitting astride him, writhing against him in pleasure.</p><p>These Men in White really know how to hurt him, that's for sure.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke is pretty sure Bellamy is going mad, and it hurts her to witness it. Presumably that's the point. She can hear his sobs growing louder, his screams somehow less human as the days roll by.</p><p>At least, she thinks they're days. Maybe they're hours, or centuries. It's difficult to tell.</p><p>She's not going mad, though. Or rather, she's trying not to. She needs to hold it together, needs to keep her wits about her. She survived six years alone but for the company of a small child – she can stay in her own head now, too. Sure, it hurts to re-watch old traumas, and the pain of watching hallucinations of desires she knows will never come to pass is even sharper.</p><p>But she's not going mad.</p><p>She can cope with remembering Mount Weather. She can cope with seeing Josephine take over her body once more.</p><p>It isn't until the radio calls that she loses it.</p><p>It was bad enough <em>making </em>the radio calls in the first place. But listening to them all over again, now, is something else entirely. She has always hated feeling powerless or pathetic, and hearing her own past <em>patheticness</em> now is even worse.</p><p>Pathetic. That's how Bellamy described it, too. He thought it was pathetic that she loved him enough to call him every day for six years with no reply.</p><p>She hides away in a little corner of her mind and tries to block out the sound of her own feeble voice.</p><p>…...</p><p>It's the radio calls that bring him back to himself.</p><p>Bellamy was losing his grip on sanity, really he was. He was losing <em>himself</em>, too, which was presumably the aim of this horrific process.</p><p>But when he hears Clarke's voice, telling him that she's all alone, burnt and sore on a planet in flames, he snaps out of it. The sound of her voice tugs at his heart, and keeps his head in the game. Her fear and sorrow cuts right through all the Men in White's carefully curated messages and reminds him of what really matters.</p><p>It reminds him of the truth – he loves Clarke Griffin.</p><p>He loves her, and he left her to burn, and he's been failing to make up for it ever since.</p><p>He wishes he could do something – anything – to put that right. He wonders if maybe helping her now would be a start, but he cannot see how on Earth he is to help her. He's strapped to a chair – when did that happen? - and all he can hear is a recording of her voice and underneath that, barely audible, a quiet hopeless snuffling noise that doesn't sound at all like the Clarke he remembers.</p><p>Suddenly there is a disturbance, and two Men in White burst into the room.</p><p>"I told you. He's aware." Says one.</p><p>"You're seeing things." Argues the other. "No one could still be aware by now."</p><p>"I'm telling you, his eyes are wrong. He looks too alert."</p><p>Bellamy realises they must be talking about him, immediately strives for some kind of slack-jawed stare. He cannot remember how his face was behaving before the radio calls snapped him out of his madness, but based on what his inhospitable hosts have said, he is supposed to look dozy and confused.</p><p>He is just in time. The pair of them approach him more closely, and one waves a torch in his eyes.</p><p>Bellamy strives with every drop of his inner strength not to flinch, not to do so much as blink. He thinks of Clarke, and of how deeply he loves her. If clinging to a vacant expression now will fool these strangers long enough to give him a chance to save her, then that is what he will do.</p><p>It works. To his utter relief it works.</p><p>They give up on waving the torch, pronounce him suitably dazed, and leave.</p><p>Great. Now he just needs to work out how the hell he's going to get Clarke out of here in one piece.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy is quiet.</p><p>Clarke decides that's OK. He's her loyal bodyguard – he's not supposed to speak, or anything. He's just supposed to follow her around and stand between her and any oncoming bullets.</p><p>That's what the Men in White have explained to her.</p><p>His job is to protect her, and be her lieutenant, and sacrifice himself to help her in any way possible. And her job is to think of something, to solve the problem, and to sacrifice herself to help the human race in any way possible.</p><p>And that is why the two of them are the key to winning the last war humankind will ever wage.</p><p>…...</p><p>They tell them that it will be the last war humankind will ever wage, but Bellamy has heard people say such things before, and in his experience, they are always wrong. There is always another war waiting just around the corner, as far as he can tell.</p><p>He doesn't say that, of course. He maintains his carefully vacant stare, and pretends to swallow the messages they present him with. He figures if he can keep up the act long enough, he will be able to help Clarke when they get out of here.</p><p>The Men in White are playing right into his hands, from that point of view. The mission that lies before him and Clarke is to stop the people of Nakara from seizing control of the Bridge. He gathers that the Bridge is the same phenomenon that Gabriel called the anomaly. This mission involves sending Clarke to solve the problem, and him as her devoted bodyguard. It seems to him that his role will give him an excuse to stick by her side until he can find a way to get her to safety.</p><p>He acknowledges in passing that these Men in White have chosen their roles well, up to a point. He would do anything to protect Clarke, and she would do anything to save the human race. But reduced to that, their roles are lacking their proper warmth, he thinks. They make it sound more like <em>duty</em> than genuine care.</p><p>He wonders whether the brainwashing has got to Clarke. He fears that it has – she doesn't make much noise, and when she does, it's incoherent. His mind is still mercifully clear, since the radio calls, as he clings to the evidence of her love and the ultimate proof that she has always had confidence in him.</p><p>If her mind has been taken – for the second time in as many weeks – he wonders what he'll have to do to win it back, this time.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke is proud when the Men in White tell her that she is ready for the mission.</p><p>She understands what she has to do. She has to stop the people of Nakara from taking the Bridge, at all costs. The people of Nakara are evil, and they send armies to Bardo.</p><p>The people of Bardo do not deserve their violence. They are good, helpful people, like her friends the Men in White.</p><p>She has been chosen for this mission because she is the Commander of Death, she knows. The Commander of Death has committed genocide before, and on this mission, she will do so again. She will wipe out the people of Nakara, because that is her mission.</p><p>Simple.</p><p>Bellamy will come with her. He is her bodyguard. He has been her bodyguard for a long time, she thinks, but she cannot remember how long. He might have to die to make sure she stays safe and gets the mission done, but that's OK. He's a bodyguard. He's disposable. She can't be foolish and worry about the wellbeing of her bodyguard.</p><p>That would make her weak.</p><p>She's not weak. She's the Commander of Death, and she must stay strong.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy was right, and he has never been so devastated to be right in his life.</p><p>They got to Clarke, manipulated her successfully. He can tell, somehow, that her blank stare is <em>really</em> blank, rather than only <em>acting</em> blank. He keeps watching her closely, just to be sure. Just to check whether she's maybe incredibly good at pretending – she did manage to impersonate Josephine well enough to bring down Sanctum, after all.</p><p>But no. He's certain it's real.</p><p>He can't let himself get distracted by that, he reminds himself as they are briefed and then taken towards the Bridge to depart for their mission. He needs to remember to keep his gaze fuzzy, and he mustn't be caught staring too intently at his mission partner.</p><p>That's going to be a difficult one. He's always had an unfortunate habit of staring at Clarke.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke cannot understand why her bodyguard keeps staring at her.</p><p>He's been doing it all day. She managed to ignore it, for the most part, to start off with. As they travelled here she told herself that he was just familiarising himself with his task, looking at her carefully to search for clues that might be useful for the goal of keeping her safe. But it's evening, now, and they've set up a flimsy tent on the snowy plains of Nakara and still he is staring.</p><p>She decides to confront it head on. She doesn't back down from trouble – that's what the Men in White told her.</p><p>"Why are you looking at me like that?" She asks him, sharp.</p><p>He pastes an unconvincing look of confusion on his face. She's good at reading people – the Men in White told her that, too.</p><p>"Like what?" He asks.</p><p>"Like you're not just my bodyguard." The words spill out of her mouth before she can entirely figure out where they came from.</p><p>Suddenly, his unconvincing confusion is replaced by glowing warmth and an urgent whisper. "You remember? Clarke? Please tell me you remember?" What is he talking about? Are all bodyguards this... inappropriately familiar?</p><p>"Remember what?" She asks, perplexed.</p><p>At once, his eyes grow sad. "We were friends once." He says, voice quiet.</p><p>"Friends?" She is incredulous. "I don't have <em>friends</em>. Caring about people makes a person pathetic, and I'm the Commander of Death. I can't afford to be <em>pathetic</em>."</p><p>He doesn't have a response to that. He just rolls over in his sleeping bag, facing away from her and pressed up against the side of the tent. But she's pretty sure she can hear him whispering something into the nylon.</p><p>"I hate that word." She thinks he says.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy doesn't know what to do. He's spent the whole night thinking about it – and shivering like mad – and he is no closer to hatching a plan than he was when he rolled away from Clarke last night.</p><p>He's spent a lot of the night worrying, too. He's sure that the Men in White must have sent them with some kind of surveillance, perhaps bugs hidden in their equipment, to ensure that they follow through on their mission. So he's concerned that his slip last night, begging Clarke to remember their friendship, might get them in some kind of trouble.</p><p>At least he was whispering, he reminds himself. Maybe they got away with it. If the Men in White were coming for them, surely they would be here by now?</p><p>Worrying about that won't do him any good, he reminds himself sharply. He needs to decide what to do, needs to reclaim something of that time on the Ring when he had to be the head as well as the heart. He needs to figure out how the hell he's going to get Clarke back. He needs to do that not just for selfish reasons – namely his love for her – nor even for her sake. He needs to do it so that she doesn't go and murder an entire planet of people who are, presumably, not guilty of the crimes their deceitful torturers have described.</p><p>The sky is just beginning to lighten with the coming dawn when he decides that he has at least half a plan.</p><p>He will mention things to Clarke that she ought to remember, or that he thinks might trigger her memories. He will start small, because he still suspects that the Men in White are listening in.</p><p>And most importantly of all, he will do everything in his power to delay the mission to wipe out these people until he has found a way to bring Clarke back.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke doesn't understand why her bodyguard is so talkative.</p><p>He was quieter in their room on Bardo. She has a distant, fuzzy memory of noticing that. She remembers deciding that bodyguards were supposed to be quiet. But this one is anything but quiet, now, handing her a bag of rations for breakfast with some passing comment she cannot make sense of.</p><p>"Apple chips. Sorry. I know they're not your favourite." He tells her. Her <em>favourite</em>? What does that have to do with anything? An operative in the field does not worry about such petty things as breakfast preferences.</p><p>She ignores him and eats one. They're sickly sweet and kind of <em>foamy</em>, in a really gross way, but obviously she's the Commander of Death so she doesn't mention it.</p><p>"We should spend a long while gathering information first." He suggests. "Remember at Mount Weather when I wanted to rush in, and you thought I'd get myself killed if I did that?"</p><p>She doesn't answer that, either. He's a bodyguard. Getting himself killed is an occupational hazard. She's more worried about why he's suddenly trying to give her advice on how to achieve their goal.</p><p>"You're very chatty for a bodyguard." She tells him, curious and a little concerned.</p><p>"Please call me Bellamy." He requests, and his eyes don't look right. They look too <em>involved</em>, somehow, too emotional. A good bodyguard doesn't waste time on emotions.</p><p>"Why?" She is taken by surprise by her own curiosity.</p><p>"We were friends once. Before I became your bodyguard."</p><p>That sounds implausible at best. "We were? How did that happen?"</p><p>"I didn't drop you into a pit full of spikes and you told me I wasn't a monster." He breathes, voice scarcely audible.</p><p>"That's not how friendship works." She informs him, because the Men in White have been clear on this. "Friendship is about caring and being pathetic."</p><p>Another faint whisper. "Caring isn't the same thing as being pathetic."</p><p>"You hate that word." She reminds him.</p><p>He has a funny habit of whispering, this talkative bodyguard of hers, but somehow she always seems to hear him.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy is on high alert as they leave the tent for a day's scouting. He's been careful to whisper whenever he says anything that he thinks might get them in trouble, but even so, he's becoming increasingly convinced that their luck will run out, sooner or later.</p><p>They need to get away from the tent. Just in case the Men in White come calling.</p><p>"Come on." He tells Clarke, setting out in a direction almost at random. "We need to find out all about Nakara."</p><p>"I'm the Commander of Death." She reminds him, and it breaks his heart. He can deal with her being in charge – although he's always ready to challenge her if the occasion demands it. But this is far removed from her usual leadership style.</p><p>"You are." He nods, speaks up in a careful monotone, hoping that if the Men in White are listening in that might make up for a few of his careless words this morning.</p><p>He hates this. He hates the feeling of looking over his shoulder, the constant fear of being watched or found out. He hates it almost as much as he hates what they've done to Clarke.</p><p>He hates everything about this, and he hates the Men in White most of all.</p><p>He stomps forward, brisk and angry, and is almost surprised to find that Clarke follows him.</p><p>"We need to learn about the people and find their weak spots." She suggests.</p><p>"Yes. We should learn everything about them." He is keen to encourage this as a delaying tactic while he figures out what the hell to do to fix Clarke's mind.</p><p>At this rate, he might need to delay things for a very long time.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke decides that the first day of the mission has been a success. They have found a couple of small settlements, nestled in rocky outcrops, and observed each for a couple of hours. They believe that the second has more significant political infrastructure, and may therefore be worth a return visit.</p><p>Her bodyguard – Bellamy – suggests calling the first settlement <em>Alpha</em> and the second <em>Beta</em> and then looks expectantly at her for a reaction, but she ignores him. She's here to slay warriors, not give villages sentimental nicknames. Doing so would be pathetic, she's certain of it.</p><p>On their way back to the tent that afternoon, they come across a hot spring. It gives rise to a large pool of warm water, disturbed by occasional bubbles and shimmering with steam. Clarke thinks that such a place looks pretty pointless, really, and that people who enjoy hot springs are rather pathetic. But Bellamy surprises her by speaking up in favour of giving it a try.</p><p>"Bathing is important for good hygiene and health. We should wash here to stay well and increase our chances of a successful mission." He suggests, in a tone of voice that suggests the Men in White have taught him this, but she's a bit confused. The Men in White didn't bother mentioning that to her.</p><p>"Bathing won't win this war."</p><p>"I'm your bodyguard, Clarke. It's my job to take care of you. You trust me to do my job?"</p><p>She thinks about it carefully. He was good at his job today, even if he was a bit chatty. He found a good hidden vantage point at the first village and knocked out a young man who saw her and approached at the second village. He does seem to be a competent bodyguard.</p><p>She nods.</p><p>"Great. So I'm telling you that, as the person who takes care of you, I think it's really important that we have a wash in this spring today."</p><p>She's still not entirely sure, but he presents a logical argument, and she's supposed to like logical arguments.</p><p>She nods again.</p><p>And then she gets on with stripping her clothes off.</p><p>Bellamy seems surprised by that, looking away sharply. She's still convinced there's something wrong with his eyes – they don't look right for the eyes of an obedient bodyguard. But she continues taking her clothes off because she's not stupid. She knows how bathing works. And when she has stripped, she gets into the warm water.</p><p>She doesn't look at Bellamy as he undresses and follows her. She's not sure why – she just has a feeling that it's not the right thing to do. When he does join her, splashing around in the water in a frankly undignified way, she thinks that his cheeks are not quite their normal colour and his eyes look even more inappropriately interested than normal.</p><p>She brushes that aside, and scrubs a little at her skin. She's here to wash, after all.</p><p>Bellamy, of course, wants to talk while he washes. It seems he also wants to continue to splash noisily.</p><p>He really is a most strange bodyguard.</p><p>"Clarke, listen to me. This is really important." He begins, still stirring up the warm water in a thoroughly disruptive way.</p><p>"What is?" She doesn't understand what's happening.</p><p>"I'm worried that the people of Nakara – the bad guys – might be tracking us. I think that the Men in White gave us electronic trackers – for our protection, of <em>course</em> – but that the Nakarans might be hacking them. I saw someone behind us earlier."</p><p>This is a surprising development. She didn't see anyone following them. Then again, maybe that's why Bellamy is in charge of security. "You really think so?"</p><p>"Yeah. I'm sure of it. I think to be safe we need to search our clothes and equipment and throw out the tracking devices. It's a shame because our friends from Bardo won't be able to find us any more, but it'll keep us safe."</p><p>Clarke isn't so sure about this. If the Men in White want to keep an eye on them, that's a good thing. They shouldn't go throwing that away without a second thought. But Bellamy seems very convinced, and he is a good bodyguard as far as she can tell.</p><p>"Could the Nakarans really hack our equipment?" She's never heard of that happening before.</p><p>He doesn't meet her eye as he keeps up his noisy splashing and speaks urgently. "Yes. Definitely. I've seen it happen before – I've got a lot of experience protecting people, Clarke. You trust me to protect you, don't you?"</p><p>"Yes." That's the only thing she's been sure of, this whole conversation.</p><p>"Great. So trust me now. As your bodyguard, I'm telling you we need to check our gear and throw out anything that they could be using to track us."</p><p>Clarke nods. That makes sense, she decides. Bellamy might say some strange things, but it is obvious that he would go to great lengths to protect her.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy is relieved on the walk back to the tent. They found one bug on each of their packs after their conversation at the hot spring, and promptly threw them into a crevasse. And best of all, Clarke is utterly trusting of him and he knows she will be willing to search the tent, on their arrival, and throw out any bugs they find there.</p><p>First obstacle: beaten.</p><p>His relief is short-lived, however. The tent lies just beyond a rocky outcrop, and he asks Clarke to hide behind it while he scouts out their campsite. There is something about the place that he doesn't like.</p><p>Yes. He was right to be worried. There are more boot-prints here than there were this morning – more than just the two of them – and he can hear voices coming from within the tent. A Man in White emerges from the tent before his very eyes, and starts yelling something indecipherable at his unseen companion.</p><p>This is problematic. It seems like the bugs picked up something he said wrong after all.</p><p>He scuttles urgently back behind the outcrop, where Clarke is waiting for him with a disinterested emptiness in her gaze.</p><p>"Are we clear?" She asks.</p><p>"No." He thinks quickly. "A pair of Nakarans. Let's stay here until they've finished searching our stuff. Then we should take the tent and move campsites."</p><p>She nods. "You're a very thorough bodyguard. You think we'll be safe if we move campsites?"</p><p>"Yeah. I'll take care of you." He says, with the gentlest smile he can muster given the strained circumstances.</p><p>They sit behind their rocky outcrop for a while. It's cold, here. Their tent was on the more sheltered side of the rock formation, so right now they are bearing the full brunt of the wind. Clarke doesn't seem to care – she doesn't seem to care about <em>anything</em>, since those monsters drained her soul of human emotion – but he knows it can't be good for her health all the same.</p><p>At last, he hears a scuffle and peers around the corner of their hiding place. The Men in White look angry, stomping sullenly around, but they seem to have finished with the tent. They are marching off in the other direction, now, following the boot-prints that Clarke and Bellamy made this morning.</p><p>He thanks any deity that might still be bothering to watch over them for the fact that today's scouting mission took them in a large circle. It will be some time before the Men in White realise that they have lost them, he hopes.</p><p>The moment the enemy are out of sight and earshot, he tells Clarke that it's safe to move.</p><p>"We need to search the tent as quickly as possible to remove the tracking devices." He reminds her. "And then we should move campsite."</p><p>She nods, utterly trusting, and it hurts. He hates lying to Clarke, hates it more than anything.</p><p>Then again, he muses, this stranger is not really Clarke.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy is a good bodyguard, Clarke decides. Whoever said that bodyguards ought to be seen and not heard was clearly an idiot. This man may be loud, but he makes her feel safe, and that is surely the highest praise she can give him.</p><p>She certainly feels safe, now, as she settles into the tent in their new campsite. Bellamy took lots of precautions on their journey here, having them paddle up a river to hide their tracks and everything. He's very thorough, and clearly very committed to his job.</p><p>She's lucky to have him on this mission.</p><p>She wonders for a fleeting moment whether it is pathetic to care about her own safety. Caring about her own safety is <em>caring</em>, after all, which is bad.</p><p>But then again, the mission fails if she dies, so maybe it's acceptable after all.</p><p>She stops wondering about such deep questions, after a while, and wonders instead how long it will take her boots to dry.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy feels much safer now that the bugs are gone. They searched all their gear thoroughly, and he's certain that the one he found sewn into a pocket of the tent was the last.</p><p>He's feeling pretty confident that no one has followed their trail, too. He's been sitting outside the tent and keeping a lookout for about three hours now, and the light is starting to fade. He thinks that if anyone was going to find them, they'd have done it by now. He wonders if he ought to keep watch all night, but he's not sure he's physically capable of it. He seems weaker since Bardo, more easily tired, and apart from anything else it is freezing out here. That hot spring already feels like it was an age ago, and his fingers are starting to tingle with cold.</p><p>He ought to stop keeping watch and go inside for the night, he decides. He'll be no use to Clarke if he's dead. If Clarke were in her right mind just now she'd be proud of him for deciding that, he thinks. That seems like an example of using his head and choosing safety and good sense over martyrdom.</p><p>The thought makes him miss her even more.</p><p>Now the bugs are gone he ought to decide how to go about getting her back, he figures. He doesn't want to be confrontational about it, because the Men in White seem to have her convinced that fighting and killing are somehow ingrained in her personality. He thinks a gentler, more loving approach will be more successful.</p><p>Maybe it doesn't matter exactly <em>where</em> he starts, he decides in the end. Maybe all that matters is that he summons his courage and starts at all.</p><p>Courage is definitely going to be needed, here. Because the problem with trying to get her back, is that he's not sure he'll survive it if he tries but fails.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke is pretty certain that Bellamy is her bodyguard, but he seems to have decided that is not all he is. Pestering her to take a wash was one thing, but now he's taking charge of making sure she eats and puts on warm socks, too.</p><p>Maybe <em>bodyguard</em> is too narrow of a job description. Maybe he is simply the man who keeps her alive.</p><p>He offers her a ration pack, with a tentative smile, and she accepts it. The food tastes edible, and she is fast coming to trust him, so when he offers her something else, too, she accepts that as well.</p><p>"Would you like to know why I hate the word <em>pathetic</em>?" He asks.</p><p>"Yes." She has been wondering that, actually. She thinks she might hate it too. Or maybe she just hates the concept.</p><p>He nods, heavily, staring into his tasteless grey meal. "We weren't just friends, you and I. We were really close, best friends even, and you did something to show me how much you cared but then I said it was pathetic. It was a big mistake, I can see that now. I hurt you."</p><p>Clarke can't remember any of this, and she wonders whether he's making it up. But she trusts Bellamy, so she doesn't see how he could be lying to her. Sure, heartfelt conversations and the logistics of her personal safety are not exactly the same area, but somehow it feels right to put faith in him on both fronts.</p><p>She doesn't ask him whether he's lying. She asks him something else entirely, even though she's pretty sure she shows unforgivable weakness by doing so.</p><p>"Do you think that's why I hate that word, too?" She wonders.</p><p>He nods, again, even heavier. "Yeah. Yeah, I do. I'm so sorry, Clarke."</p><p>"You're forgiven." She tells him. Somehow it feels like the right thing to say.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy tries to convince himself that this evening with Clarke constitutes progress. She trusts him, and she permitted an entire conversation about his least favourite word before clamming up and starting to talk about their plans to further the mission tomorrow. That has to be better than nothing. All he needs to do now is bring her back to herself before she actually gets to the point of blowing anyone up or getting herself hurt.</p><p>So, yeah, it's better than nothing. But he still wants to weep.</p><p>He can't do that. He's sharing a tent with her, for one thing, and that would definitely raise her suspicions. All he can do is sit here calmly and keep drip-feeding her the truth, even though to do so is breaking him inside.</p><p>They get ready for bed, each settling into their sleeping bags. It's beyond cold in here, now, and although their clothing and equipment are designed for the inhospitable temperatures on Nakara it is still uncomfortable to say the least. He's not bothered for himself, of course, because he's experienced worse pain than a little chill today. But he is worried about Clarke's wellbeing, because keeping Clarke alive will always be his calling in life.</p><p>"You doing alright? Not too cold?" He asks her softly.</p><p>"I am cold." She declares. "We should share body heat."</p><p>He gapes at her in shock, glad that she is facing away and cannot see his expression.</p><p>"Bellamy? We should share body heat. It's the logical solution in extreme temperatures. They taught us that on Bardo – don't you remember?" She asks him, sounding rather panicked by the idea that he might have forgotten such a crucial instruction from the Men in White.</p><p>Damn it. That was close. "Of course. They taught us that on Bardo. You're right. Silly of me not to think of it." He tries to keep calm as he says the words.</p><p>"We used to be best friends." She reminds him, sounding almost proud of herself for remembering that fact. "So it shouldn't be a problem for us to hug if it helps us to stay healthy."</p><p>He is sorely tempted to let out an hysterical laugh. When he imagined spooning Clarke Griffin, he never quite imagined it like this. He wonders about telling her that they were, unofficially but truthfully, rather <em>more</em> than best friends, and that this is therefore a thoroughly awkward suggestion. But he figures that would make her freak out, and remind him what they learnt on Bardo all over again.</p><p>Apart from anything else, he's cold and he likes hugging Clarke.</p><p>He agrees to the idea and they zip their sleeping bags together, and then slip into their rearranged bedding side-by-side. She worms her way into his arms as if that's her natural habitat – as if <em>remembers</em> that she belongs there, almost – and rests her head on his shoulder, her nose butting gently into his neck.</p><p>Those Men in White did turn him into a monster after all, he decides. They might not have managed it in quite the way they were hoping, but they have at least turned him into the kind of monster who gets a sick thrill of pleasure out of cuddling Clarke, no matter how horrific the circumstances.</p><p>He forces his thoughts back towards the strictly practical.</p><p>"You feeling warmer?" He asks.</p><p>"Yeah. This was a good idea. We should always sleep like this. It makes a lot of sense."</p><p>He makes a humming noise, incapable of forcing actual words past the lump in his throat.</p><p>She falls silent for a while, and he wonders if she is asleep. But it turns out that she is not, when she says something very unexpected.</p><p>"We could be best friends again if you like, Bellamy. You're a good bodyguard and I don't seem to have any other friends."</p><p>His heart breaks for approximately the hundredth time today. "You do have other friends, Clarke. You don't always realise it but people care about you. They're just not here right now."</p><p>There is another silence, and he wonders whether he has upset her, or whether perhaps she is still processing his suggestion.</p><p>It turns out, instead, that it is a silence born of simmering anger.</p><p>"Caring makes you weak." She informs him, tone harsh.</p><p>She rolls away, still in his arms, but now simply backed up against him for warmth, not nestling her nose against his neck.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke is confused, and spends much of the next day debating within her mind. It distracts her from their plans to gather information to support their mission, but that's OK. It turns out that Bellamy is a pretty skilled operative, considering he's only her bodyguard and all. He picks up the slack while she argues with herself.</p><p>She just can't understand how she could ever have had a best friend. She's the Commander of Death – she's not supposed to care about people. Caring about people is pathetic. It makes her weak.</p><p>And yet, she trusts Bellamy. He's done a great job of taking care of her, since they started this mission, and she knows with some instinct she cannot entirely explain by logic that he has taken care of her before this, too. She thinks there might even be a little more than only <em>trust</em> going on here. She liked hugging him last night. It felt warm and familiar. And this morning over breakfast he made a joke about their unappetising food and she actually found herself wanting to smile.</p><p>So, yeah, she can well believe that he used to be her best friend. And she meant what she said last night, about thinking maybe he could be her best friend again. He seems like a good best friend to have – protective and fun and really quite kind.</p><p>But the Commander of Death shouldn't have a best friend.</p><p>She decides to share some of this with him, in the end. That seems like the sensible move, here. If he really is her best friend, he ought to be willing to help her out when she's struggling with her feelings.</p><p>"I don't understand it. You're my best friend, yes?"</p><p>"If you still want me to be." He nods, his eyes doing that thing again where they show far more feeling than can possibly be decent or appropriate.</p><p>"I do." She assures him, not sure why she's so certain of it.</p><p>"Great. Then, yes, I'm your best friend, Clarke." His voice sounds funny, but she can't work out why.</p><p>"OK. But I don't understand how I can have a best friend? I'm the Commander of Death. I'm not supposed to care about anyone or anything other than my mission. Caring makes me pathetic." She pauses for a moment, wondering whether there is anything more she needs to add. "I really do hate that word." She concludes, in the end.</p><p>He gives a strange laugh. It sounds a bit like he's being strangled. "Me too. Shall we try not to use it?"</p><p>She nods, because he's her best friend, and she wants to be kind to him. But she's not sure she will be able to stop using it, because it's a pretty key part of her vocabulary. Does that make her a bad best friend, if she makes a promise to him that she might not be able to keep?</p><p>Bellamy continues speaking. "Caring isn't the same as – as that word. I promise, Clarke. Caring can actually be what gives you strength and makes you fight for the people who are important to you. Love isn't weakness – it's the opposite."</p><p>"I think I've heard something like that before." His words sound familiar, somehow.</p><p>"Yeah. Yeah, you have. We... disagreed about it once."</p><p>"It sounds like we argued and fell out and upset each other a lot. Are you sure we were best friends?"</p><p>"I've never been more certain of anything in my life." He tells her firmly, and she believes him, because she thinks probably she will always trust Bellamy.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy thinks it has been a decent day, all things considered. They scouted out another couple of villages, and learnt enough to make Clarke feel like she is still fulfilling the mission, but too little to get any closer to killing anyone. And while they scouted, they chatted, and he reminded her of various things that used to make her Clarke. Nothing substantial, as yet – he hasn't dared to mention Madi, for example – but small things like her skill at chess and her love of drawing. And she accepted them all, seemed almost to be filing them away for later consideration each time he mentioned a new feature.</p><p>They're sitting in the tent again, now, eating some rations that make his stomach turn but will at least keep them alive.</p><p>"It's not exactly chocolate cake, is it?" He says, wondering if she might smile at him some time before they ultimately freeze to death out here.</p><p>"I like chocolate cake." She says, frowning.</p><p>"I know."</p><p>"How do you know? I don't even know when I've <em>eaten</em> chocolate cake."</p><p>"At Mount Weather." He reminds her.</p><p>"The mission that made me the Commander of Death."</p><p>He hums, not keen to acknowledge that name, but forced to admit that what she just said is more or less the truth.</p><p>"How do you remember that I like chocolate cake when I don't?" She asks him, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "You remember so many things about me that I don't. How does that work?"</p><p>He decides that honesty is the best policy – but perhaps honesty delivered in carefully controlled portions.</p><p>"Someone hurt your head." He tells her.</p><p>"Hurt my head? What do you mean?"</p><p>"Someone messed with your memories. They made you forget some of the good things, the happy things, so that you would concentrate on the mission more."</p><p>She looks shocked. "They did? Who would do that?"</p><p>This could be it. This could be his chance to tell her the truth of what has happened to her and win her back.</p><p>"The Men in White." He tells her.</p><p>Her reaction is instantaneous. She bolts away from him, dropping her meal as she scoots right to the other side of the tent. "No. You're lying to me."</p><p>"I don't lie to you, Clarke. You trust me, remember?"</p><p>"No. No no no. The Men in White are my friends. They were kind to me. They wouldn't hurt my head."</p><p>"They did. I was there. I can tell you all about it, if you want."</p><p>"No. No, you're lying." She makes a frantic start on unzipping the tent, evidently desperate to be out of his presence.</p><p>He can't let that happen. Hating himself for it, he reaches out to grab her, his greater strength making light work of keeping her still and hauling her away from the door.</p><p>"Let me go!"</p><p>"No. I can't, Clarke. I have to look after you, remember?" Still she struggles. "Please, calm down. You can't go outside, you'd freeze. I have to keep you in here where you're safe."</p><p>"Let me out of here!"</p><p>"No, Clarke. If you leave, you'll freeze to death." He swallows back tears as he pulls out his trump card. "You can't go outside and die, because then the mission would fail. The mission is important to you, isn't it?"</p><p>"We are the key to winning the last war humankind will ever wage." She recites obediently.</p><p>"Exactly. The mission is important to you, so you mustn't go outside."</p><p>"I won't go outside." She agrees. "The mission is too important. Will you let me go, now?"</p><p>He does as she asks. He loosens his hold on her and, reminded of the mission, she goes obediently back to scooping grey gruel out of her ration pack. He keeps eating, too, trying to behave normally for the sake of keeping her calm. But despair has rather sapped his appetite. If that is what happens when he starts to tell her the truth of her brainwashing, he is certainly not going to be able to tell her the whole story any time soon.</p><p>They go to bed the moment they have finished eating. They share the combined sleeping bags again, because sharing body heat is still a logical way of ensuring the success of the mission, and this frightening corrupted Clarke is all about logical ways of ensuring the success of the mission. But she doesn't curl into him tonight, and the cold tip of her nose does not tease at his neck. She barely even touches him, staying as far away as she can in their shared space.</p><p>It's colder than last night, for that reason. But more than that, he is chilled to the bone by the knowledge of just how deeply the Men in White have hurt the woman he loves.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke doesn't sleep very well that night. It's colder when she's not cuddled up against Bellamy. She decides after a couple of hours that being warm is more important than being angry with him. After all, her health and safety is essential to the success of the mission – he reminded her of that earlier.</p><p>She shuffles a little, backing up against his chest, and he reaches an arm around her even whilst snoring softly. This is better, she decides. It's warmer, and it reminds her that she has a best friend.</p><p>Even now, though, she still cannot sleep. He might be her best friend, but she's very angry with him for accusing the Men in White of doing something so terrible. She's confused, too, because he genuinely seemed to believe it was true. She trusts Bellamy, and she knows he wouldn't upset her deliberately. There must have been some mistake, she thinks – it's as if he thought he was protecting her, only he got confused.</p><p>She can't help but notice that his version of events does explain some things. If someone has messed with her head, that would explain why she can't remember her own story very well, and why her best friend remembers things about her that she doesn't. And it might explain another phenomenon she cannot put her finger on, this vague feeling that she is missing something every time Bellamy gets that expressive look in his eyes.</p><p>The only way in which his story <em>doesn't</em> make sense, really, is that it doesn't line up with what she knows about the Men in White. And that's a pretty big problem.</p><p>Bellamy likes to hug her, she notes, after several sleepless hours. He's holding her quite tight, his arm tucked just under her breasts and his body curled perfectly around hers. It makes her feel safe, and the thought that safety might be quite a pleasant feeling doesn't seem so pathetic, somehow, as she found it yesterday.</p><p>In the end, dawn is almost breaking when she decides what to do about this confusion. A rational person gathers all the data before making an informed decision, she knows. So that is what she intends to do on this occasion – she will get all the information from Bellamy that she can, before trying to decide whether his story is true or not.</p><p>With that decided, she relaxes into his warmth and falls asleep at last.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke looks tired the next morning, and it makes Bellamy's heart hurt. His head hurts, too, confused by the way that she went to bed so angry with him but woke up in his arms.</p><p>He grows only more confused when she starts to speak over breakfast.</p><p>"I want you to tell me your story so I can decide whether it's true." She says, frowning into her bag of apple chips.</p><p>"Are you sure? It upset you yesterday."</p><p>"Yes. I promise not to get angry. A rational person gathers all the data before making an informed decision." She recites carefully.</p><p>He nods, and starts to explain. "I was kidnapped and taken to Bardo. You came looking for me."</p><p>"Because I'm your best friend." She supplies, evidently pleased that there is a part of the story she understands.</p><p>"Yeah. So you found me, but that was exactly what the Men in White wanted. They'd been using me as bait, I guess. They wanted to get both of us together."</p><p>"Because we are the key to winning the last war humankind will ever wage?"</p><p>"Yeah. They needed to make us obedient soldiers. When you first arrived, you were kicking and screaming. You were furious with them for taking me. And I was strapped into the chair already, just watching you lash out at them."</p><p>"The chair?"</p><p>"The strapped us into these chairs and forced us to watch things that messed with our minds. They had this gas that made us see things."</p><p>"What kinds of things?"</p><p>He swallows with difficulty. He's not sure how much he's ready to say about that – but, on the other hand, he's more than ready to go through a bit of discomfort if it means getting Clarke back.</p><p>"The gas made us see our... dreams for the future, I guess. Unrealistic dreams. They used them to torture us and make us feel hopeless. And they showed us film of our past – some of it was true and some of it wasn't."</p><p>"And this made me forget things?"</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"But you still remember things?" She asks, narrowing her eyes with a little hint of the curious perceptiveness he recalls so well.</p><p>"Yeah. I was forgetting things too. But then they showed us something that made me remember by accident. So then I pretended it had worked to stop them getting suspicious until I could find a way to get you to safety."</p><p>"Because you're my best friend." She repeats, and he finds his throat growing thick. Of course that is the only thing she is sure of, now, after everything they have done to her.</p><p>He nods, not quite capable of speaking.</p><p>"What proof do you have?" She asks.</p><p>"Proof?" He chokes out the word.</p><p>"What you say makes a lot of sense. But I trusted the Men in White. They were my friends. What proof do you have that you're telling the truth? Aside from the little things you've already said about chocolate cake. There must be things you know that really matter."</p><p>That's a difficult request, he decides. He can't tell her anything that will scare her off, or hurt her, or remind her of those radio calls and her new fixation on what it means to be pathetic. And this will work best if he chooses something she truly remembers, so he figures he ought to pick something that has nothing to do with either their relationship, or with their history together, or with this mission.</p><p>"Before I was your best friend, there was Wells. He was your best friend when you were a child." He offers.</p><p>All at once, her eyes light up. "That's true! Wells! Why do I remember that?"</p><p>Bellamy is pretty sure he has never smiled so wide in his life. "Because he was really important to you. You cared about him a lot. And because he's nothing to do with me or this mission, so I guess the Men in White left your memories of him alone."</p><p>She nods, eager. "It wasn't at the top of my mind, but I hadn't <em>forgotten him</em>, you know?"</p><p>This, he decides, is progress.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke feels better, as they finish their breakfast and set out for the day's scouting. She hasn't entirely decided whether she believes the whole of Bellamy's story, yet – namely, she hasn't decided whether the Men in White are the real enemy – but she has decided that a lot of what he says must be true, and that she was right to trust him. Most of what he says lines up closely with what she knows or believes or can figure out, and apart from anything else, Wells was <em>real</em>, and that has to count for something.</p><p>"Thank you." She says, as they stomp through the snow.</p><p>"What for?" He sounds genuinely confused.</p><p>"Taking care of me. Trying to help me remember. You're a great best friend."</p><p>"You're welcome." He treats her to a smile, and she decides that he has a pretty smile. She thinks that maybe she might have noticed that before, in another life.</p><p>"Could you tell me more about what I've forgotten? Please?"</p><p>He looks thoughtful, but it doesn't bother her any more. It makes sense, she decides, that he should always look so interested, if everything he has told her about watching her have her mind altered is true.</p><p>"I can try to tell you a bit about your mum and dad?" He suggests, after a moment's consideration.</p><p>"Yes please."</p><p>"Your mum was a doctor. Did you know that?"</p><p>"Yeah. And my dad was an engineer?"</p><p>He smiles again, even wider, even prettier. "You're going to be OK, Clarke. You're going to remember everything."</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy is feeling cautiously optimistic, as the afternoon lengthens and they start to head back to their tent. Clarke is curious, which is a definite improvement, and although she still doesn't remember anything much beyond her childhood, she is eager to hear any story he will offer her. There is even the faintest glimmer of recognition when he mentions that she has a friend called Raven, so he decides that counts as progress.</p><p>Then she starts to talk about tomorrow.</p><p>"We need to plan which villages we want to scout in the morning. Do you think there's anything else beyond Delta?"</p><p>He feels his heart sink, but strives to keep his voice level as he replies. "Do you want to scout in the morning? I was wondering – if you're starting to think that the Men in White might not be such good friends, do you want to keep up with the scouting for the mission? We could take a day to sit in the tent and see if you can remember anything else about Raven, instead." He suggests, praying she will buy it.</p><p>"I want to scout." She says, to his deep disappointment.</p><p>"You sure?" He cannot resist double checking.</p><p>"Yeah. I think – it's something to do, you know? I don't remember how to do anything other than the mission. Talking about Raven sounds good, but we can do that while we walk. And we should keep scouting, just in case."</p><p>"Just in case?"</p><p>"I haven't decided about the Men in White yet. Not completely." She tells him, gaze averted.</p><p>It's just as well she's not looking at him. It means she won't notice his eyes filling with tears.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke thinks that Bellamy might be disappointed with her for not believing him about the Men in White right away. That would make sense, she figures – he's her best friend, and she trusts him, and she's pretty certain you're supposed to believe the word of a best friend you trust. But in her defence, she thinks that her standpoint makes sense, too. She has staked her life on this mission and on her orders from the Men in White. It would be strange to turn her back on them without being absolutely sure.</p><p>He doesn't look at her the same as they trudge home to their tent. There are no more pretty smiles, and she misses them. She misses the chatter, too. He's a very talkative bodyguard, and that's part of what makes him such a good best friend.</p><p>In the end, she starts the conversation. She asks him to tell her more about Raven, and he is very informative, but there is still a certain lack of life in his eyes.</p><p>It isn't until they are in the tent, falling into the same tired routine of tasteless food and getting ready for sleep, that she comes up with a better idea.</p><p>"Teach me how to do something other than scouting." She demands.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>She checks herself. That was rude, and not very clear. "I said earlier that I wanted to scout because this mission – it feels like everything I know how to do, everything that I am. Could you teach me how to do something else?"</p><p>"Like what?"</p><p>"I don't mind. Anything. Just something that best friends might do together."</p><p>He nods. "We could play a game?"</p><p>"Games are for children." She tells him smartly. "Playing games as an adult is pathetic."</p><p>He looks away sharply, and she realises what she has done.</p><p>"I'm sorry, Bellamy. I didn't mean it. I just – I use that word a lot. It's like it's stuck in my head."</p><p>"I get that." He says, but he still won't look at her.</p><p>She tries again. "Have we played games before? Back before I lost my memories?"</p><p>"Not much. We never really had the time. But there was this one time not long after we first met – before we were best friends, really – when you were playing this game where you had to throw metal pieces into a cup."</p><p>"That doesn't sound like much of a game." She says, puzzled, but not wanting to upset him again.</p><p>"You looked like you were having fun."</p><p>She nods, thoughtful. "I don't have any cups with me. Or metal pieces. I don't bring things like that on a mission."</p><p>He laughs a little, his pretty smile back in place, and she finds her own lips curving up at the edges in response. It feels strange, but good, to have a go at smiling.</p><p>"Let's play a different game." He suggests. "There's a game I used to play with my sister. It's not that exciting but it can be fun. You have to think of something you can see, and tell me what letter it starts with."</p><p>She frowns. That sounds simple. He did say it might not be that exciting, but she's not sure that her excitement-meter is functioning so well right now anyway.</p><p>"If we play the game for a bit will you tell me about your sister? I'd forgotten you had a sister. I feel like I should know about my best friend's sister."</p><p>"Sure I will." He agrees, still smiling that smooth smile.</p><p>She thinks she's beginning to remember why she liked Bellamy in the first place, back before those Men in White messed with her memories.</p><p>…...</p><p>They go scouting the next morning, but Bellamy forces himself not to make a big deal of it. If he's going to help Clarke come back to herself, he's going to need to keep his emotions in check and use his head once in a while, not freak out just because he's hurt that she doesn't entirely believe him.</p><p>Anyway, she clearly does believe him for the most part. They had a pleasant evening last night, more or less. They played childish games and talked about Octavia. Clarke even smiled on occasion, showing that the warmer side of her personality is still in there, somewhere.</p><p>To his confusion, about an hour into their scouting for the day, Clarke turns and leads them in the wrong direction.</p><p>"I thought we were scouting beyond Delta today?" He asks, perplexed.</p><p>"That's not a logical thing to do now that we both understand the Men in White were lying to us." She says, as if it's as simple as that. As if she hasn't just turned his world upside down.</p><p>"You mean that?"</p><p>"Yeah. Can we go to the spring and get warm and talk?" She asks.</p><p>"Sure. Yeah. Whatever you want, Clarke." He clears his throat noisily, and follows her lead.</p><p>She doesn't understand why he might be uncomfortable about bathing naked with her, of course. And anyway, it's not like they can really see each other in the steamy, grey-ish waters. If this is what she wants to do – if it will help her to be comfortable and talk and piece together her story – then he will put his discomfort aside and do whatever it takes to look out for her.</p><p>Just as she did last time, she sheds her clothes without self-consciousness when they arrive. She slips quickly into the water, beckoning to him to follow.</p><p>He does follow. Of course he does. He'd follow her into the jaws of hell if he had to – a warm bath is certainly no great hardship.</p><p>"You wanted to talk?" He asks when they are both comfortable in the water. He needs to keep the conversation moving, or he will allow himself to notice that Clarke is naked scarcely two feet away from him.</p><p>"Yeah. I understand everything you've told me so far, about my memories, and even about the Men in White. But there's something you're not telling me, isn't there? Something you're hiding. And I don't like that, because I want to trust you."</p><p>"Clarke, you <em>can</em> trust me."</p><p>"So tell me. Tell me the whole truth about why we both hate the word <em>pathetic</em>."</p><p>He should have known this was coming. He's had days to prepare for it. To be honest, he should have been preparing his apology for that word from the moment it fell from his lips. But now she is outright asking him, he feels himself freezing in fear despite the warm water.</p><p>"Clarke -"</p><p>"Tell me." She orders, looking every inch the Commander of Death for all that she is lounging up to her neck in a hot spring.</p><p>He tells her. Of course he does. He might not take orders from Clarke, but he doesn't like to disappoint her, either.</p><p>"OK. It's – it's the same thing that snapped me out of it, on Bardo. I think – judging by the way you're hung up on that word, I think it might be the thing that made you crack. I'll tell you. I want to be honest with you. But I don't even know where to start."</p><p>"From the beginning." She suggests, unimpressed.</p><p>He's not sure where the beginning of this story is, exactly. There are so many different strands, all knotted together, and the story of that ill-fated conversation under a red sun in Sanctum is really just one page of the story of <em>them</em>.</p><p>In the end, he starts with the place that hurts the most. Like ripping off a plaster, hard and fast.</p><p>"I left you. There was a wave of fire and radiation destroying the Earth, and I ran away to space with our friends and I left you behind." It sounds even worse out loud, he notes, that heartbreaking truth he's been running from for centuries.</p><p>"But you were my best friend?"</p><p>"Yes. And that's why – why I've never forgiven myself for leaving you."</p><p>"But I forgave you." She does not phrase it as a question.</p><p>"You always forgive me, even when I don't deserve it. You still cared about me even though I left you. You called me on the radio every day for over six years while I was gone. And then I came back, and I was trying to tell you how sorry I was for leaving you and not replying but instead – instead I ended up saying it was pathetic. I meant it as a joke, but it wasn't a very funny one. You laughed anyway, but I could see you were upset."</p><p>He always thought that if they ever got to this point, she would remember the radio calls. He was hoping that maybe the same thing that broke her in the first place would snap her out of it now. He thought that she'd be angry, sure, or maybe even hurt. But he thought that there would be recognition in her eyes.</p><p>There isn't. She just stares at him, blank and shocked, and he learns rather abruptly that her hurt runs even deeper than he realised.</p><p>"Why would you do that?" She asks him, visibly stunned. "I don't understand. You seem like a good best friend. Why would you leave me and then <em>joke</em> about it?"</p><p>He spreads his hands helplessly, water running down his fingers like tears. "I don't know. I don't know, Clarke. I'm so sorry. I just – joking about the serious stuff was one of the things we used to do. I guess I thought it would be OK."</p><p>It wasn't OK, he can tell that now. Nothing about this is OK.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke doesn't understand, and she's fed up of not understanding. She has pieced together enough of her past, with Bellamy's help, that she's pretty convinced that she used to be good at working things out and solving problems. So she is frustrated that the Men in White have taken that away from her, as well as her memories.</p><p>She keeps thinking about that conversation with Bellamy, and about the word <em>pathetic</em>, on the walk from the hot spring back from their tent. She's trying not to be in a grumpy mood with him, but it's difficult. He hurt her, badly enough that the Men in White managed to take advantage of it and bring it back to bite them, now.</p><p>She's angry with him, but he's the only friend she has.</p><p>She can't make sense of everything he said. The fact that he left her – <em>that</em> she has got the hang of. It's logical, she reckons. If she cared about him so much, she would have wanted him to survive. She would have wanted him to leave, so that's fine.</p><p>But she still doesn't understand why he'd joke about her trying to call him every day for six years. Obviously that is not a thing to joke about that – even she knows that, and she's currently some kind of inhumane <em>robot</em>, for goodness' sake. And it's all very well for him to say that she used to be OK with him joking around, but that doesn't explain why he thought this was a laughing matter, nor why she was so brutally hurt by his belittlement of her commitment to him.</p><p>When she works it out, she laughs. She gives a full-on hysterical belly laugh, in the middle of the snowy tundra, because she should have seen it sooner. The Men in White might have messed with her emotional intelligence, but this is <em>obvious</em>. She understands, at last, why his humour hurt her so badly, and why he always looks at her so strangely, and a thousand other things besides.</p><p>"We weren't just friends." She announces, when she has control of her hysteria.</p><p>"You remember?" He turns to her, all stunned eagerness.</p><p>"Of course I don't <em>remember</em>. I worked it out. Solving problems is what I do, isn't it?"</p><p>"Clarke -"</p><p>"Save it. I don't want to hear another out-of-place joke or your excuse for why you couldn't tell me we were in love sooner. Tell me, are there children waiting at home for us?" She has a feeling she might have children, but she's not sure where she got that idea from.</p><p>"You've got one. A daughter. Madi. She's not – she's not <em>ours</em>. We were never really together." She thinks he might be about to cry, but she's struggling for sympathy, just now.</p><p>"Of course we weren't." She scoffs, all injured cynicism, as she turns her face away and keeps walking.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy knows Clarke is furious with him, and he can see why. It's not just the old injury of his thoughtless words back in Sanctum. He's the only friend she has, right now, stranded on a strange planet with her mind torn apart. She trusted him, and he kept things from her. Sure, he was only keeping things from her to save her from growing angry or upset, or trying to storm out of the tent like she did when he first mentioned the Men in White. But all the same, he understands that it looks like deceit from where she is sitting.</p><p>She's not interested in talking about it, so he figures he ought to show her how much he still cares, instead. They arrive home, tired and cold and damp, and he finds her warm clothes and makes some hot tea.</p><p>She looks surprised when he hands her a steaming mug, but she doesn't complain. He takes that as a good sign, and offers her a small notepad and a pencil, too.</p><p>"Why are you giving me this?" She asks, confused. "We didn't scout anything new today. I don't have any notes to make."</p><p>"I know. I thought you might want to draw." He says, swallowing down discomfort.</p><p>"Draw?"</p><p>"You used to like drawing." He prompts.</p><p>"Yes. I know." She still looks confused.</p><p>The notebook sits, untouched, by her side while she drinks her tea. Bellamy resigns himself to failure. He should have known that she didn't want any peace offering of his, just now. This new Clarke is difficult to work with, he muses. She has all of <em>his</em> Clarke's fierceness and fire, but without the human warmth and soft edges that made her so easy to love.</p><p>He misses her.</p><p>He turns aside at that, tears prickling at his eyes. He feels a little pathetic, actually, but he supposes he didn't ought to be thinking in those terms. Upset with himself for ever getting his hopes up, ever thinking that she might want to draw, he dashes a hand across his face and heads for the door of the tent.</p><p>"I'm going to go see if there are fish in the river. We don't know how long we might be here." He says. It's a feeble excuse, but she lets it go, nodding and sipping at her tea.</p><p>There are no fish in the river – at least, not as far as he can tell. That adds another issue to his rather long to-worry list. They are stranded here, in hostile territory, half way through trying to rebel against the wishes of the people who brainwashed them. And now they don't even have a food source for when their rations run out.</p><p>There are no fish, but there are plenty of boulders. He kicks a large one a couple of times, feeling pain smart in his foot but deciding that he probably deserves it. He picks up a couple of smaller pebbles, throws them into the river with as much force as he can muster.</p><p>That makes him feel a little better. It lets out some of his frustrated nervous energy. And it's the first time since their mission started that he's been so far away from the near-stranger who wears Clarke's face. In some ways, he doesn't like that, because he's worried about her safety. But on the other hand, it is good to get some breathing space.</p><p>He's in a marginally better mood when he returns to the tent. His toes hurt, but his heart feels slightly less sore.</p><p>"Bellamy?" She asks, as he opens the door.</p><p>"Yeah, it's only me. You're safe." He should have thought of that before bursting in here.</p><p>"I know. You'd do anything to protect me."</p><p>He gives her a sad smile, because it's the truth. He eases his boot away from his bruised toes, and sits himself down on his side of their sleeping bags.</p><p>That's when he notices that there's something on his pillow. A small sheet of paper, torn from a notebook, with a sketch in light pencil. It's clearly him – more specifically him <em>sleeping</em> – but it looks like him sleeping on a couch of some sort, not resting in this tent.</p><p>"What's this?" He asks, picking it up.</p><p>"It's to say thank you for looking out for me. And that I'm sorry for being angry earlier. It's just – I've had a lot to process."</p><p>"I get that." He rushes to assure her. "Don't apologise. I should be apologising for saying it in the first place."</p><p>She shakes her head. "It's OK. I forgive you. That's what I do, right?"</p><p>He nods. "Even when I don't deserve it." He looks back down at the sketch. He's beginning to think he knows what it's a sketch of, but that doesn't make sense. He hasn't told her about that night yet. It felt too much like a declaration of love.</p><p>"Do you like it?" She bites at her lip when she has finished the question.</p><p>"I love it. It's beautiful. You remembered this?" He asks, cautious.</p><p>"Yeah. Kind of? I wanted to draw, and I drew this. It's like my hands and eyes remembered it even if my head didn't."</p><p>"OK. That's great. You want to tell me what else you can see from this night?"</p><p>"There was a list. The list was almost full. I wrote your name down. I can still see my hand shaking."</p><p>He nods, encouraging, trying to blink back the tears that are welling up in his eyes. "Do you remember what happened next?"</p><p>"You woke up."</p><p>"I wasn't really asleep. I was pretending, because you wanted me to go to bed but I wanted to stay to look out for you."</p><p>"OK." She nods. "You weren't asleep. You came over and wrote down my name."</p><p>"You remember what I said?"</p><p>"No. Sorry. I'm so sorry. I can remember what I saw, but not what I heard." He dares to reach out for her hand. To his shock, she does not so much as flinch. She simply turns her hand over and entwines her fingers with his.</p><p>"That's OK, Clarke. You're doing really well. You remember what happened after I wrote your name?"</p><p>"You kind of squeezed my shoulder? I leaned on you. It felt nice." He squeezes her hand as she speaks, hoping that she might find the gesture comforting.</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"And that was it?"</p><p>"More or less. I made another one of my stupid jokes."</p><p>"You need to take care with those, Bellamy. They'll get you in trouble one day."</p><p>He laughs at that, a slightly damp chuckle, brushing at his eyes with his free hand. His warm and caring Clarke is still in there, somewhere, and he's going to get her back.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke sleeps well that night, nestled in Bellamy's arms. She sort of wanted to stay up late drawing and seeing if it would help her remember, but after the night with the couch and the list, her mind was frustratingly blank.</p><p>When she wakes up the following morning, she is feeling optimistic. But she still has one very important question.</p><p>"If we were more than best friends and we loved each other but we were never together – what <em>were</em> we?"</p><p>Bellamy gives a pained smile. "I don't know, Clarke. I gave up on trying to give a name to it. I think it's better if I just give you examples."</p><p>"What do you mean?"</p><p>"I mean that what we were was complicated. But that memory we talked about last night pretty much sums it up."</p><p>"With the couch?" She clarifies.</p><p>"Yeah. You were trying to save the human race but you couldn't bear to save yourself. I was camping in your office to look out for you and see if there was anything I could do to help. And to remind you that you were worth saving, and to try to make you smile."</p><p>"What did you get out of this?" She asks, confused. What he describes sounds rather one-sided. Much like their current dysfunctional best-friendship, now she comes to think about it.</p><p>"What do you mean?" He seems flummoxed.</p><p>"So you looked after me and made me smile and reminded me that you thought I was great. What did you get out of it? It sounds really one-sided. I don't understand why you'd be in love with me."</p><p>He leans back on his hands, shaking his head as if he cannot believe she needs to ask. Has he forgotten that she cannot remember anything? Or does he just think it's obvious?</p><p>He starts speaking, and does not stop for quite some time.</p><p>"You took care of me, too. Not so much by stopping people shooting me. But you kept me centred, reminded me of what mattered. You gave me something to fight for. And you made me feel like I had worth, like I deserved to be loved for who I was, not just for what I could offer. You brought out the best in me. And you always made me smile."</p><p>"You have a pretty smile." The words are out of her mouth before she can stop and notice that they are phenomenally unwise.</p><p>He looks stunned. Absolutely and completely shell-shocked. In fact, she has to lean closer just to check he's still breathing.</p><p>"Bellamy? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."</p><p>"No, it's OK, Clarke. I'm sorry. I just – I never thought things would turn out like this, you know?"</p><p>"I know." She swallows, thinks back over his earlier words. There's something she wants to do, but it requires a bit of courage. "Could I take care of you now, too? Even though things are different? Could I take care of your foot where you hurt yourself?"</p><p>"My foot?"</p><p>"Yeah. The bruises. Two of your toes are blue. You really thought I wouldn't notice?"</p><p>He nods, meekly, and takes off his sock.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy starts to feel like he lives with the real Clarke again, that day. She spends the first part of the morning applying ointment to his foot, despite his protests. He's pretty sure he's not going to die of a broken toe or two, but it's good to see this side of her personality out in force once more. And when that is done, she draws for a little while, producing a fairly accurate depiction of the dropship camp, followed by a picture of his smiling face. It's a more recent scene – he has a beard and tired eyes – but he cannot quite pinpoint it.</p><p>"When's this one?" He asks her, curious.</p><p>"The cave." She explains. "You were locked up. I had to give you a key? You were really happy to see me. I fought some people?"</p><p>He nods, excited, as he works it out. "When we were going to save you from Josephine."</p><p>"Josephine was in my head." She comments, and he's proud of her. That's a big thing for her to have remembered unprompted.</p><p>"Yeah. She was. But Gabriel helped to take out the mind drive."</p><p>"And then you brought me back to life." She supplies.</p><p>"Yeah. You're remembering well this morning." He tells her.</p><p>"I think it's the drawing. It helps."</p><p>"Then you'd better spend more time drawing." He says with a grin. He means it lightheartedly, but he should have learnt by now that his attempts at levity are often misguided.</p><p>"I can't spend more time drawing. We have to go scouting soon." She insists, panicked.</p><p>He sighs. He was hoping they might be done with the mission. "We can go scouting if you want. I just thought – since you decided the Men in White were wrong, and since you learnt how to play games and draw, maybe we don't need to scout any more?"</p><p>She fixes him with a firm frown for that. "Bellamy. Think about it. If the Men in White aren't the good guys, then we need to find out what's really going on here. We need to scout out Nakara more thoroughly, maybe find someone who can tell us the truth. And then we need to work out how to defeat the Men in White. But we need a plan that doesn't kill everyone. We need to do better."</p><p>Acting on impulse, he lurches across to her side of the tent, fixing her in a fierce and rather awkward hug. He's leaning from the waist, and her knee is digging into his stomach, and her sleeping bag is sliding on the groundsheet, until both of them are crashing gracelessly into the wall of the tent.</p><p>It's the worst hug they've ever shared, but it's also the best. It's the best because her nose is in his neck and his lips are on her hair and she's <em>Clarke</em>, present and almost correct once more.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke decides something, as a result of that hug, as they lace up their boots and start hiking towards the village they have named Beta.</p><p>She decides that it sucks that she doesn't love Bellamy any more.</p><p>He seems like a good guy. He's a great bodyguard, and an exceptional friend, patient and caring yet warm and fun. She knows he has an inner strength, too, a core of steel that can withstand unpleasant missions and dragging the woman he loves back from the brink of insanity. She cannot imagine how much he has been tested, this last week.</p><p>So, yeah, she thinks he'd be a pretty great person to be in love with.</p><p>She wonders if love is something she can learn. If she's noticed he has all these great qualities, and she knows how their loving un-relationship used to work, can she learn how to love him all over again?</p><p>She resolves, rather firmly, that she will.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy doesn't understand what's gotten into Clarke. Suddenly she's become very talkative, asking question after question about trivialities. He's not complaining, of course. It's good to have a more sociable Clarke back in his life. He's just confused.</p><p>"You like apples. Have I remembered that right?" She looks at him, smiling brightly, as they walk.</p><p>He almost trips over his own feet. But that's because his toes are hurting, of course, not because of her smile. "Yeah. I like apples."</p><p>"Great. And in a lot of the memories I can see you're wearing this kind of tan colour shirt? Is that because you like tan, or was it a uniform thing?" She's getting better at remembering now she is focusing on shapes and colours, drawing out the scenes with a pencil or in her mind's eye, and he's proud of her.</p><p>"Both, I guess? It was my uniform, but I liked it. Gina said it suited me."</p><p>"Gina?"</p><p>He swallows, uncomfortable. "She was my girlfriend for a while."</p><p>"I can't picture her." Clarke sounds alarmed. She's been doing well at visualising their past all morning, so he can understand that this is a disappointment to her.</p><p>He reaches out to squeeze her shoulder in reassurance. "That's OK. It doesn't surprise me. You never met her, at least not on the ground. She would have worked with your dad on the Ark?"</p><p>Clarke shakes her head.</p><p>"No, that's OK, Clarke. You wouldn't remember her if you never saw her."</p><p>"Why did I never see her? If I was your best friend who loved you, shouldn't I have noticed if you had a girlfriend?"</p><p>"We weren't together that long. It was while you were away."</p><p>"Away?"</p><p>"Yeah." He clenches his jaw, and forces himself through it. She got upset, last time he didn't tell her the whole truth. "Can you picture you and me standing at the gates of Camp Jaha? And then you kiss me on the cheek and walk away?"</p><p>She nods. "I was away long enough for you to get a <em>girlfriend</em>?" She sounds shocked. "I thought that memory went with a day trip or something."</p><p>He orders himself to be honest. "Not a day trip. Three months."</p><p>"I'm sorry."</p><p>"Don't be. There's no point now. I was angry with you for a long time, but we talked it out ages ago. Centuries ago."</p><p>"We're good at forgiving each other." She comments, and he nods.</p><p>They fall into silence and keep walking. Bellamy doesn't like the look of the sky today, and he's wondering whether continuing this expedition is wise. There are clouds building up to the north, and that's a worry. He needs to keep Clarke safe.</p><p>He's about to mention that, when she asks another of her little questions. It reminds him of how chatty he was when he was first trying to talk to her on Nakara, in a funny kind of way.</p><p>"Do you ever drink? I can't see any scenes where you drink. At the Unity Day party you definitely didn't."</p><p>"Not much." He concedes. "I like to be on my guard. I drank some evenings during the three months you were gone, and I drank more than I should have done when I lived in space without you."</p><p>She nods, then comes out with another one. "And who's your favourite Greek hero?"</p><p>Right. No. This is getting beyond ridiculous. That cannot possibly have <em>anything</em> to do with her getting her memory back.</p><p>"Clarke? What is all this? What are you trying to do?"</p><p>She is silent for a moment. And then she speaks, and turns his world upside down.</p><p>"I'm trying to learn how to love you again."</p><p>He is still standing and staring, utterly motionless, when the first flakes of snow start to fall.</p><p>…...</p><p>It's snowing heavily by the time they make it back to the tent, flakes lying thick on their hoods and clinging to their eyelashes. Clarke thinks that Bellamy looks kind of cute with snow on his eyelashes, but she's not about to say that. He still seems to be recovering from what she said earlier, about trying to learn to love him again.</p><p>If that's his reaction to hearing that she's <em>trying</em>, she can't wait to see his reaction when she succeeds.</p><p>They spend the rest of the day quietly in the tent together, staying safely out of the burgeoning blizzard. It's cold, so Clarke decides it is perfectly reasonable for them to be half-snuggled in the sleeping bags together while she draws.</p><p>Bellamy doesn't seem to disagree with her on that.</p><p>"What shall I draw next?" She asks, because drawing is simpler than trying to understand the fuzzy feeling she gets from curling up against his warm chest.</p><p>"What do you want to draw?" He throws the question back at her.</p><p>"I want to <em>remember</em> the radio calls. I want that more than anything, because it seems like they are the key. But I can't draw a call." She laments.</p><p>All at once, he is hugging her close. "Hey, it's OK. It's OK. Start somewhere else. Do you remember the day I left you? Can you picture us planning water rations and then I'm brushing your forehead?"</p><p>"And then I've got my hand on your chest, right here?" She demonstrates. "And then on your face, like this?"</p><p>He nods, and his face is doing funny things, his cheek trembling against her finger. "Yeah. That's right. Do you want to draw that?"</p><p>If he wants it drawn, she certainly wants to draw it for him. That's clearly a memory which is important to him, and she figures that maybe she could give him the finished sketch as a gift.</p><p>…...</p><p>By the time the snow starts to ease the following day, Bellamy is developing quite the collection of sketches. Clarke doesn't want to keep them – she insists that it is the process of drawing which helps her remember, and that she has no use for the finished pictures. And she tells him that she likes giving them to him, a small gift of thanks for looking out for her and sticking by her.</p><p>She doesn't need to thank him for that. He does it out of love, not looking for gratitude.</p><p>With the weather improving, though, he figures it is time to stop sketching and start making plans. He needs to be ready to take a lead on strategy, after all, while Clarke is still not quite right.</p><p>"We should decide what we're doing when we can go out and about again." He suggests, trying not to stare too obsessively at her sketch of him bursting through the door to save her from ALIE in Polis.</p><p>"We need to talk to one of the Nakarans alone."</p><p>"Yeah. But we shouldn't take anyone violently. We just need to get someone alone and tell them the facts."</p><p>"We used violence before. On Lincoln." She volunteers. "You regretted it."</p><p>"You remember that? Even the regret? That's great, Clarke. You can't draw regret."</p><p>She looks suddenly sad. "I don't <em>remember</em> the regret. I remember Lincoln, and I know you well enough again now to realise you must have regretted it."</p><p>It's not exactly the progress he was hoping for, but it's progress all the same.</p><p>…...</p><p>It is easy to get a Nakaran alone. They manage it the following morning, just outside Beta, when a young man drowning in a substantial parka passes the outcrop they are hiding behind.</p><p>It is supposed to be simple. Bellamy is supposed to jump forward, and subdue him without hurting him, and then they will talk to him.</p><p>Only that isn't quite how it turns out. Clarke is watching from her safe vantage point, tucked behind a rock, as the Nakaran fights back, pulling some unexpectedly effective moves. And then she watches in horror as Bellamy's leg gives way beneath him, something more substantial going awry than a few bruised toes.</p><p>The Nakaran is standing over Bellamy, now, pointing a gun at his face.</p><p>"Stop!" Clarke leaps from her hiding place, throws herself between Bellamy and the gun without a second thought. "Please, stop! Please!"</p><p>The passion behind her plea leaves the Nakaran visibly taken aback, and she presses her advantage.</p><p>"Please, we just want to talk. We have news about what Bardo has planned for you. We want to help you."</p><p>The Nakaran sneers. "What do you know of Bardo?"</p><p>"Put the gun away and let me see to my friend's leg, and then we'll tell you." Clarke instructs him, remembering that such conversations came to her rather naturally, once upon a time.</p><p>He looks torn, gun wavering. Clarke knows that face – she thinks she has worn it herself, a time or two.</p><p>"We have information about Bardo. You want to hear what we have to say." She reminds him.</p><p>Sighing, he lowers the gun. "Make it quick." He says, pretending his bargaining position has any strength.</p><p>Clarke ignores him while she turns to Bellamy. He assures her that he's fine, but she's not having that. She saw him go down heavily, saw his leg buckle under him. She explores the length of his shin with tentative fingers, finds his ankle is painful and already swelling.</p><p>She can do this. She used to be a doctor. She just needs to find a splint, or something, and surely these people have medical resources. Perhaps she ought to see if she can get him an X ray to check -</p><p>"For goodness sake." The Nakaran strides over, flapping his hands. "I didn't break anything. I just thought he deserved a twisted ankle. A little thank you for ambushing me on my way to the seal hunt."</p><p>"Seal hunt?" Clarke asks, momentarily distracted. She hasn't seen a single seal here, she's pretty sure. Then again, she's not quite clear on what seals look like – she only barely remembers them from watching documentaries on the Ark.</p><p>"I really am fine." Bellamy uses this opportunity to repeat himself. "Please, Clarke. Just let me up and let's get on with this. You can make a fuss of me later."</p><p>The Nakaran snorts. "You've got a loving girlfriend, I envy you that. Now can we get to the point?"</p><p>Right, yes. The point. Clarke thinks her concentration might have been better, before Bardo.</p><p>"What's your name?" She asks.</p><p>He frowns. "Tomas."</p><p>"Great. Tomas. I'm Clarke, and this is Bellamy. We came here from Bardo, but that's not our home." She's not sure she has a home, any more. Perhaps Bellamy is her home – or is that idea a little pathetic?</p><p>"But you know what Bardo have planned for us?" Tomas asks, pushing her back on task.</p><p>"Yeah. They wanted us to lock the Bridge so that your army couldn't get through, and then wipe you out. They said that you'd been invading Bardo a lot, but we're not sure that's true."</p><p>"It's half true." Tomas concedes. "We make a lot of raids on Bardo, but only to get our people back."</p><p>"Your people?"</p><p>"Bardo takes them as slaves. Whenever we can muster an army, we go to see if we can get them back." Tomas looks away, eyes narrowed. "They took my sister."</p><p>"I'm sorry."</p><p>He shrugs, but it takes visible effort. "Everyone has lost someone. It's not proper to make a fuss about it."</p><p>Clarke bites her lip. This is horrific. Sure, brainwashing a couple of assassins should have been her first clue that the Men in White were hardly angels. But enslaving such a huge proportion of the population of their neighbouring planet? That's horrific on a whole new level.</p><p>It's like Mount Weather all over again.</p><p>She can see the reapers in her mind's eye, and wonders how the Nakaran slaves are treated. Are they brainwashed or drugged, too? Or are they kept in line through a more physical kind of torture?</p><p>While she is spiralling, Bellamy is thinking straight. She's pretty sure it wasn't always like that, but she hopes to get back onto a more even keel when she can remember her own life story once more.</p><p>"Could you take us to some other people who can tell us more about this?" Bellamy asks. "We believe you, of course we do. But we can't act on one man's word."</p><p>Tomas nods. "I must be mad to trust you. You've just told me you've come from Bardo. But to be honest, we're getting desperate."</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy likes Tomas right away. He knows that's a silly response, given that their introduction involved the Nakaran gifting him a twisted ankle, but any man who cares that much about losing his sister is a good guy, in his opinion.</p><p>"We'll get your sister back." He promises as he walks, gait only a little uneven from his injury.</p><p>Tomas looks at him sharply. "We're not supposed to wish for our families back. We're just supposed to be happy if <em>anyone</em> comes home again."</p><p>Bellamy doesn't know what to make of that, so he moves the conversation smoothly onto other topics. He asks Tomas to tell them about seal hunting, and about what else the Nakarans eat, and how they survive the harsh weather conditions.</p><p>They are just about in sight of the first houses of Beta when Tomas stops them at an outlying hut.</p><p>"This is us." He announces, unnecessarily. "Just me and my grandparents, since my sister was taken and my parents died trying to get her back."</p><p>That hardens Bellamy's resolve. He cannot allow the people of Bardo to continue causing such widespread destruction.</p><p>They are welcomed into the home with open arms – almost literally. Scarcely has Clarke opened her mouth to explain the reason for their visit before their hosts start corroborating the tale Tomas told them. They provide additional detail, too – how many raids Bardo have made to take slaves, in how many years. The elderly lady insists on showing them a jagged scar that splits her calf, evidence that the raids have been occurring for generations.</p><p>There is no doubt about it – Tomas was telling them the truth.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke knows it's wrong, but she's enjoying this. She's not enjoying the fact that Nakara has been ravaged by the people of Bardo, of course not. But she's enjoying the opportunity to tackle a problem and become the kind of Clarke who belongs in the pictures she has been drawing.</p><p>She's enjoying working with Bellamy, too. She cannot believe, now, that she ever allowed the Men in White to persuade her that they were Commander and bodyguard. They are clearly so much more than that, a complicated and balanced partnership, and she's ashamed of letting herself be convinced otherwise.</p><p>Tomas and his grandparents insist on helping them with their mission right away. They lead them to what seems to pass for a town hall, round here, and suddenly they are surrounded by enthusiastic Nakarans wanting their help.</p><p>"We can fight." One woman assures them.</p><p>"We've beaten them before. But not as many times as they've beaten us." Another adds.</p><p>Clarke thinks fast, decides where their priorities lie. "We need to speak to an engineer, if you have one. Someone who understands the Bridge? I think if we can seal the bridge for now that will give us more time to make our plans."</p><p>They do have an engineer. They have an engineer and a serious thirst for revenge. But revenge isn't what Clarke has in mind, here.</p><p>She seems to remember that she's supposed to do better.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy figures that their day has proved a success. They have befriended the Nakarans, and learned the truth, and bought themselves a little time. Clarke is behaving ever more like her old self, relishing the challenge of a planet to save.</p><p>But truthfully, he just wants to go home. He's not sure when a flimsy structure of drafty nylon in the middle of a snowy plain became home. He figures it was probably the second he started sharing it with Clarke. Tomas and his grandparents are keen to ask them to stay the night, but Bellamy's not interested in that.</p><p>He wonders whether Clarke might be, though. The tent is cold, and uncomfortable, and she might well want to sleep in a soft, warm bed for a change.</p><p>She surprises him by speaking up.</p><p>"We should get home." She tells their new friends, and he starts. Does she think of the tent as home, too?</p><p>"Really, you're welcome to stay." Tomas tells them for perhaps the third time. "I don't know whether Bellamy wants to walk with his ankle?"</p><p>All of a sudden, Clarke is gasping in horror and turning towards him. "I'm so sorry, Bellamy. I didn't think. All this excitement – my memory must still not be working right. Tomas is right, you mustn't walk home injured."</p><p>He's not about to give up on the idea that their tent is <em>home</em> just because of a little soreness in his ankle, and he hopes that his glare makes that perfectly clear to Clarke. "I'm fine, I can walk. We should spend the night at our place and come back here tomorrow." He states firmly.</p><p>"Are you sure?" She sounds concerned.</p><p>"Yeah. I forgot all about the ankle myself." He lies brightly.</p><p>It works. They take their leave of all their new friends, and then they head home.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke likes walking cheerfully home with Bellamy. It feels domestic, and it also feels <em>new</em>. It doesn't feel like something they've done before but she has forgotten – it feels instead like something that belongs uniquely to this moment, and to learning to love him all over again.</p><p>She decides to test out that theory.</p><p>"Have we ever walked home together before?" It's perhaps a strange question, but Bellamy does not seem to think it odd.</p><p>"Not really. I suppose there's Mount Weather, but then you didn't come inside. Or the trip from the supply depot to the dropship, but we were both high and stressed out."</p><p>"I like this better. It's calm." She offers, not sure how to express the way her heart warms at the thought of belonging in a happy safe space with Bellamy.</p><p>"Yeah. I like it too. I always wished we could just have a peaceful home together."</p><p>"That could still happen." She suggests, surprising herself with her own optimism.</p><p>"You think so?"</p><p>"I still have hope." Somehow, that seems like the right thing to say.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy is surprised when Clarke invites him to stay up and chat after supper. It's been a long day, and he rather thought they would call it a night. But he's always happy to talk to Clarke, so he simply eases his throbbing ankle up onto a pile of spare clothes in front of him and gestures her to start speaking.</p><p>She doesn't choose to begin with a memory.</p><p>"Your ankle's hurting." She observes.</p><p>"Yes. But I wanted to come home. We've already agreed that home is good." He tells her, aware that his tone is over half way to confrontational.</p><p>She does not provide the other half of the brewing argument. She simply wraps him in an affectionate hug, taking him rather by surprise.</p><p>"I'll strap it up before we walk back again tomorrow." She offers mildly, and the subject is dropped.</p><p>She reaches now for her notebook and sets it on her knee. Then she picks up a pencil and starts to twirl it thoughtfully in her fingers.</p><p>"What do you want to draw and talk about?" He prompts.</p><p>"I want to remember the radio calls." She says, for perhaps the hundredth time. "But I still can't draw a radio call."</p><p>He frowns a little, considering. "Could you draw a radio?" He asks.</p><p>She nods and sets to work, a small radio dish shaping up on the page before her. She adds other components, picking them out in stark graphite.</p><p>"Great. That's a start." He tells her when she is done, hoping to sound encouraging. He's not really sure where they go from here.</p><p>She picks up where his ideas left off, turning the page and drawing a new scene.</p><p>"What's next?" He asks.</p><p>"I'm trying to draw the place I used to sit to call sometimes. It was a table by the house. Sometimes we would eat there." She recalls, bringing the scene to life with her pencil as she speaks.</p><p>It gets easier with each image she adds. She draws herself sitting in front of the rover, holding the radio. She stops drawing after that, describing the process of settling down to make her call.</p><p>"And can you tell me what happens next?" He prompts, whenever she runs out of words.</p><p>"Yeah. So I'm sitting there holding the radio, and I press call. And then I start talking to you. I start with the number of days, and saying hello. So something like 'Hey, Bellamy's it's day ninety-five. I hope you're doing OK. The berries are starting to ripen – Madi's excited about that. She's going to show you all the berry fields when you get back here.'" She pauses slightly. "'<em>If</em> you get back here.'"</p><p>The pair of them sit in stunned silence for a moment. And then, all of a sudden, Bellamy is beaming from ear to ear as he pulls Clarke into his arms.</p><p>"You did it." He whispers into her hair. "I knew you would, Clarke. You remembered it."</p><p>"I did." She sounds almost surprised at her own capabilities.</p><p>He draws away from the hug. "Do another one."</p><p>"OK. Let me think. Bellamy, if you can hear me – if you're alive – it's been 2199 days since Praimfaya. I don't know if you can hear me on this piece-of-crap radio."</p><p>"That's real, right?" He has to double check before his excitement runs away from him.</p><p>"That's real." She confirms, utterly confident for the first time since the Men in White got to her. "I remember."</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>"I remember." She repeats. "It's not just the words. I remember all of it. I remember what I was thinking and feeling when I spoke to you." Her eyes turn sad. "That's why it hurt, Bellamy. I get it now. That's why I was upset when you said it was pathetic. That's why I snapped when the Men in White played them to us." She heaves in a shaky breath. "I thought it <em>was</em> pathetic."</p><p>"Clarke -"</p><p>"No, listen. I understand it now and I need you to understand, too. I <em>did</em> feel pathetic. That's why it made such an impact when you said it. I thought I was pathetic for calling you every day for six years even though you didn't answer. Especially when you came back with a girlfriend. That made me feel like I was pathetic, and that you hadn't been thinking of me like I'd been thinking of you."</p><p>"We haven't talked about Echo. Not since Bardo." He points out cautiously.</p><p>"No. I think – I think maybe I remember <em>everything</em>."</p><p>"You do?"</p><p>"Either that or the man I love finding a new girlfriend while I pathetically called him every day for six years was pretty memorable." She says, with the cynical humour he used to know.</p><p>He's not in the mood to laugh at her comment. There's something else bothering him, making him really quite annoyed. "Will you <em>please</em> stop saying it was pathetic, Clarke? It wasn't, OK? It was – apart from anything else, it showed me how much you loved me. And I've never forgiven myself for throwing that away. But don't you dare call it pathetic. Caring about people doesn't make you weak. Caring about people was always where you got your strength, Clarke. It was caring about people that made you do such tough things to save them."</p><p>"Caring about <em>you</em> kept me sane, with those radio calls. It kept me strong." She whispers.</p><p>He nods, and gathers her into another hug. He's been doing a lot of hugging, this evening, but he cannot convince himself to regret it.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke enjoys hugging Bellamy, but she thinks there is something she could more usefully be doing right now than curling into his shoulder and ignoring the fact that he has a girlfriend. Now that she remembers everything, she thinks that they ought to talk about what happened on Bardo. Maybe not the sex hallucinations, which she can now remember in vivid detail, but at least the more useful stuff about how they were manipulated and why.</p><p>"Now that I remember everything I can see what they were trying to do. They were trying to take the things that make us a good team but make them more extreme." She suggests.</p><p>"Yeah. I've been thinking that, too. They wanted to take the way I'm driven by caring about people but remove any shred of self-preservation. They wanted me absolutely devoted to you and prepared to die to protect you without a second thought."</p><p>"To be fair, that doesn't sound so different from what you're like anyway." She says with a sad smile. "Remember when you walked through that Azgeda army because Roan kidnapped me?"</p><p>It's the wrong thing to say. She can tell because Bellamy bristles, affronted. "I've been <em>trying</em>, Clarke. I've been trying to have some sense and think things through. Like you asked me."</p><p>"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it as an insult. It's one of the reasons I loved you." She says, pretty certain that she's just used the wrong tense. "And you've never been an idiot, have you? You may act on your feelings more than anything else, but it's not like you're really some mindless bodyguard. You infiltrated Mount Weather and negotiated with Diyoza." She offers by way of examples.</p><p>He nods, slightly mollified, but still not meeting her eye. She decides that she ought to repay him with a little honesty, in turn.</p><p>"They wanted to make me some kind of unfeeling machine. I think it was easier for them to get to me because I was already heading that way. I'd just lost my mum, and I'd given up any hope of you ever loving me the way I loved you. It wasn't hard for them to convince me I was a heartless monster. It probably would have worked if it wasn't for you."</p><p>He does meet her eye, then, gaze soft and warm. "But it didn't work, because I always look out for you."</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy is feeling good, the following morning, as they set out for the village once more. Clarke has remembered everything, and is more or less her normal self. He thinks she might be sadder, but maybe that's the loss of her mother. Or maybe it's worse than that – maybe her personality has changed, since he knew her before Praimfaya, and he still hasn't worked her out, quite.</p><p>Even if that's true, things are basically looking up. A naively optimistic voice in the back of his mind suggests that if they find a good solution, here, they might get to spend the rest of their lives relearning each other's personalities.</p><p>"What do you think we should do?" He asks Clarke as they walk. They ought to have planned this last night, he supposes, but they were a bit busy talking and cuddling and celebrating Clarke's returned memories.</p><p>He should feel bad about it, he fears. There was nothing much that could constitute a physical betrayal of his relationship with Echo, but he knows that he started betraying her in his heart centuries ago.</p><p>Clarke jerks him out of those unhelpful thoughts with a simple and confident solution. "We should get all of the information we can, and write it down in case travelling the Bridge messes with our memories. And then we should get them to send us back to Sanctum so we can ask Raven."</p><p>"That's it?"</p><p>"Yeah. I know it sounds too easy. But I've remembered recently that things work out better when I don't try to bear everything alone." She points out shrewdly.</p><p>"True."</p><p>"So we're going to ask Raven. If we want to stop Bardo without killing them all I figure her brain is our greatest weapon. They have some crazy technology. We're going to need her to find some way to take down their systems so we can get in and get the Nakarans out without hurting anyone."</p><p>"Monty would be proud." He says, wistful.</p><p>She reaches out to squeeze his hand, and the two of them keep walking.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke knows she ought to be happy, that evening as she sits in the tent that has become their home. The Nakarans are opening up the Bridge to send them back to Raven tomorrow, and with her help, Clarke is hopeful that they might be able to find a non-violent solution. She figures that even if all they do is wipe out the Men in White's clever technology, that will give them a good start. And she ought to be happy, too, because she has her memories back and tomorrow she will be reunited with her friends and, most importantly, her daughter.</p><p>But tomorrow will also bring the end of a tent with Bellamy that feels like home.</p><p>She needs to tell him that she's sad about that, she decides. It seems better than telling him nothing, which is the alternative. She's not quite feeling ready to point out the metaphorical elephant in the small, canvas-clad room – namely that, now she has her personality and memories back, she is obviously in love with him all over again. There doesn't seem much point, somehow. He knows she loves him. He was there on Bardo, and he saw the hallucinations. And she knows he loves her, for exactly the same reason. But between Echo and the current crisis she doesn't feel that she is supposed to speak up on the matter.</p><p>No, there's more to it than that. Bardo may have made their love explicit, but neither of them is stupid. They both knew about it before they saw each other's hallucinations.</p><p>They've made a habit of being silently in love with each other, over the years. It's become a tradition which has endured for centuries. And so she doesn't feel like she's allowed to point out the obvious now.</p><p>Steeling her resolve, she says what she can.</p><p>"I'm going to miss this tent. It feels like I have a home for the first time since Shallow Valley with Madi."</p><p>"I'm going to miss it, too. I've enjoyed living with you."</p><p>"We should try it again some time."</p><p>He nods, and smiles, but she can read the truth in his eyes. He doesn't believe he's allowed his happy ending with her.</p><p>She really wishes the pair of them would stop tiptoeing around each other like this. It is, she thinks, at least a little pathetic.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke's annoyed with him, and he's not stupid, so he knows why. She's been annoyed ever since yesterday evening, when he brushed off her attempt to talk about the future.</p><p>He knows it's illogical, but he's scared of talking about the future. Every time he even allows himself to <em>think</em> about it, something seems to go wrong. He planned a future with Clarke on the Ring during Praimfaya, but then left her behind. He dreamed of a future with her on Sanctum, then lost her to Josephine, then got kidnapped and taken to Bardo.</p><p>He wishes he could just freeze time, and live in this snowbound tent with her forever.</p><p>They clear their gear out of the tent slowly. He doesn't think he's imagining that she's doing it deliberately, and for his part it is certainly no accident. He's determined to make this morning last as long as possible, to remember the strange kind of happiness they briefly shared here.</p><p>It's very <em>them</em>, he decides, that some of the happiest days of his life involved freezing his fingertips off whilst almost-platonically sharing a tent with the best friend he's been in love with forever. The combination of utter hopelessness, and of salvaging something good from even the worst of situations, suits their relationship rather neatly.</p><p>He looks up, wondering about sharing his observation with Clarke, and finds her resealing her pack for, by his count, the seventh time.</p><p>"Don't rush on my account." He says, making a feeble joke because of course he hasn't yet learnt his lesson.</p><p>She's not laughing. But this time it's not as though she's <em>hurt</em> – no, he's pretty convinced that's anger in her eyes.</p><p>Feeling immediately guilty, he sets to work on damage limitation. "Clarke -"</p><p>"I love you." She interrupts him, sounding absolutely furious. "Obviously I do, Bellamy. What else did you think would happen when I got my mind back? I love you, and you love me, unless you've changed your mind very suddenly in the last week. You can't tell me that when we arrived at Bardo you were having hallucinations about us having babies and me calling you <em>my hero</em> and now suddenly you're happy to just -"</p><p>He interrupts her with a kiss, hard and fast, his lips pressed against hers and his hand tangled in her hair.</p><p>Only it's wrong. It's all wrong. She's frozen beneath him – not with fear, but with shock or disgust or something else too horrific to contemplate. And he hasn't set things right with Echo, who deserves better.</p><p>Clarke deserves better, too. Clarke deserves freckle-cheeked children and passionate lovemaking and most of all, she deserves a hero, not a clingy bodyguard with poor timing in the middle of a windswept plain on a hostile planet.</p><p>He tries to pull away, but Clarke has already beaten him to it. She is staring up at him, sorrow in her eyes.</p><p>"I can't. I'm so sorry. I love you so much, you have to know that. But after Finn... I can't."</p><p>"I know. I'm sorry, too, Clarke. I shouldn't have put you in that position." He falls helplessly to his backside on the snowy ground, his head resting in his hands.</p><p>She sits at his side, more slowly, more controlled, and prises his hands away from his eyes.</p><p>"Don't blame yourself for this one, Bellamy. We can fix this. We've fixed worse, haven't we? I left you behind to die and we got over that. We can deal with a little bad timing."</p><p>"I'm so sorry. I should have spoken to Echo as soon as I found out you were alive but I couldn't. I know that's pathetic, but it was like – if I told her I still loved you, did that mean I was telling her I'd never really been hers at all?"</p><p>She doesn't answer his question. She says something much more useful instead.</p><p>"Nothing about that is pathetic. Nothing about <em>us</em> is pathetic. We are going to go back to Sanctum, and save Nakara, and then we are going to be happy together."</p><p>"I don't take orders from you."</p><p>"Tough. You're going to work with me on this one." She informs him smartly.</p><p>"Yeah. You're right. I am."</p><p>She smiles softly at him for that, and gives him a hand to help him to his feet. He accepts, his ankle twinging a little, and they finish putting the tent away, working more swiftly now that the tension is broken.</p><p>"I love you." He tells her, as he collapses tent poles. "Just in case you were wondering."</p><p>She rolls her eyes. "You're still not funny."</p><p>"Our kids will find me funny." He claims, although it feels almost dangerous to speak of them as a real future, rather than a painful dream he cannot have.</p><p>"All kids find their dad equal parts funny and embarrassing. You know, Madi's already over half way there." She tells him conversationally.</p><p>"Really?" He has not spent as much time with the girl as he would have liked – he never felt like it would be <em>allowed</em>, somehow.</p><p>"Yeah. We should take her camping when we've finished dealing with this."</p><p>"Such a Clarke thing to say. One major conflict to deal with, then we'll take a nice family holiday." He teases.</p><p>She grins at him, warm and honest and real. "Careful. Don't make me angry."</p><p>"Or what?"</p><p>"I won't let you call our daughter Cassie?" She offers by way of threat.</p><p>"Eve is nice too." He concedes, thinking back to the hallucination he watched in the lab. It doesn't feel at all like torture, somehow, now that he is looking at it as the future, rather than forbidden fruit.</p><p>"At least we're both agreed on Gus." Clarke points out, as she makes a start on rolling up the tent with much huffing and the odd muffled curse.</p><p>"Let me help." He offers, kneeling at her side despite the pain in his ankle.</p><p>She looks at him as if he has lost his mind. "I survived six years without you, Bellamy. I think I can roll up a tent."</p><p>That's his Princess – not pathetic in the slightest.</p><p>…...</p><p>It was a clever idea, Clarke has to concede.</p><p>She even found herself admiring those scientists in their white coats, for a moment, back before Bellamy reminded her who her real friends are.</p><p>Their couples' torture didn't work, though, because the Men in White rather underestimated the couple they chose. They should have realised that it was not so easy to take down Clarke Griffin and Bellamy Blake. The two of them might not be a typical couple, but that is to their credit.</p><p>They've yet to tie the knot, but all the same, their love can move mountains.</p><p>She's feeling pretty confident, as they take their leave of Tomas and the rest of their new friends and promise to be back with a solution soon. The two of them on their own are pretty exceptional, but add in the rest of the friends they have waiting back in Sanctum and they are a force to be reckoned with. Bardo won't know what's hit them – with minimal casualties, though, of course. Doing better doesn't mean rolling over and accepting injustice. It means fighting back without irradiating three hundred people, she understands that now.</p><p>She's sorry to leave this place where they made a brief home, but she knows they need to get back to Sanctum. She and Bellamy are the key to stopping the last war humankind will ever wage, and that's a responsibility she intends to take seriously.</p><p>She takes Bellamy's hand as they walk. She wants to hold off on anything more overtly romantic until he has spoken to Echo and there are no ghosts to haunt them. She knows from past experience that there is no joy to be found in deceiving a friend – or even someone who might be a friend, one day.</p><p>"We'll be OK." She tells him, feeling the tension in his hand. Of course they will be OK. She might not be the Commander of Death any more, but he is still the man who keeps her alive.</p><p>"Yeah. I'd do anything to protect you, you know that, right?"</p><p>"As long as you're OK, too." She reminds him, offering him a small smile. "I care about all my people, but I care about you more."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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